


Unexpected

by mizface



Series: Stuff of Legends [4]
Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizface/pseuds/mizface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How is it that this stripling had seen what she’d been able to hide from even her own clutch-sibs?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as an untitled birthday ficlet, prompted by the fabulous Hazelwho, who asked for "any back story on awesome lizard doctor chick." This timestamp takes place a few months after Fraser is fostered with the Ck'schey'tha, well before the events of Stuff of Legends.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Zhu’Thah’lleh didn't startle, but it was a close thing. Thr’hey’Zhurr had been taking his lessons seriously - this was the first time in the months since he’d come to An'zheuss'sseheyh that he'd come upon her without her knowing was there. She continued digging, carefully working the soil around the tiny shoots she was nurturing, making sure there were no weeds threatening to choke the fragile herbs.

He seemed to take her silence in stride, content to sit on a nearby rock and watch her work. Patience she knew he had in excess, a startling trait in one so young. She dug some more, letting her focus on the task settle her mind, as if by putting things in order here she could do the same for herself. Finally satisfied with the state of the tiny garden bed in front of her, she sat back and looked him in the eye.

"Am I that entertaining?" she asked in Common.

He smiled, but shook his head. "I thought perhaps you'd like to talk."

"If I had wanted that, I would have ssstayed in the village after weaponsss practice." He gave her a look she'd learned meant disbelief. "You think otherwissse?"

"I think," he replied softly, voice slow and careful as he sounded out the words in Ck’schey’tha, "that the others wanted to talk about battles and technique. And that those topics are last on your list."

It was true, but the fact that Thr’hey’Zhurr, a Vhelsheh boy still new to An'zheuss'sseheyh, had seen it so clearly was disquieting. How is it that this stripling had seen what she’d been able to hide from even her own clutch-sibs? "It is talk appropriate for warriors," she finally replied, switching to her native tongue as he had.

"It is," he said with a nod. “And yet you don’t like talking about it, about how to hurt others." He paused a moment, then added quietly, "You don't like doing it either."

Her feeling of unease grew, and she fought to keep from hunching her shoulders defensively. "I am excelling in my training. I am the largest and strongest of my clutch. Of course I am to be a warrior."

"But you don't want to be," he said so matter-of-factly it shocked her a little. His features changed then, and somehow he seemed older, more mature, and a strange understanding lit his eyes. "Taking a life isn’t something anyone should do lightly, I know, but for you… it seems to me as if that would harm you nearly as much as them.”

Zhu’Thah’lleh looked away, afraid he’d see the truth of that echoed in her expression. "It is my duty to serve the tribes," she answered.

"True," he agreed. "But there are many ways to fulfill that obligation. If the tribes were at war, I would understand your insistence. But they aren't, nor is war looming on the horizon. So why be something you aren't?"

She'd asked herself the same thing far too many times. "I am expected..." she started, then sighed deeply. "It is not the easiest thing, to choose who you are."

"And you think being something you're not will be easier?" He shook his head, then moved to kneel next to her, his pale, smooth hand on her shoulder. “What are these?” he asked, pointing toward the plants in front of her. “I don’t recognize them.”

She blinked at the question, but answered, grateful for a safer topic. “They’re a healing herb. Well, I hope they are. It’s a hybrid I’m trying, hoping to make it hardier, grow later into the season.”

He nodded, and the look he gave her suggested she’d answered more than just the question he’d asked. "I think there are other paths you could follow, if you just let yourself see they're there." He tilted his head toward the seedlings she'd been tending. "And I think some part of you already knows where to look."

She was silent, the two of them just watching each other; after a minute he got to his feet. "I didn't mean to disturb you, or push. Just..." he got a far-off look, then shook himself as if to bring himself back to the moment. As he did, whatever mantle of maturity he’d taken on was gone; in its place was the unsure adolescent she’d found herself growing fond of the longer she knew him. "I know I’m not really part of the tribe, but if you need to talk I'm here, for whatever that's worth."

Before she could correct the misassumption that he wasn’t one of them, he smiled a tiny, saddish smile and darted off. Zhu’Thah’lleh watched him leave, staring long after he was gone, then looked down at her hands, claws still covered in dirt.

He was right - she had some real thinking to do. She wondered, though, if hers had been the only destiny they’d been discussing.


End file.
